How often is that we see people in our extended families and our community that believe that their family gets along just fine and doesn't have any problems, only to find that screaming, yelling, name calling, and physical aggressiveness is almost the norm? More >>

Keith McVey lives in Akron, Ohio. He's 53 years old and is a mailman. Everyone in Akron knows him. Recently, he saved the life of another person for the third time in his life.  While delivering the mail, he noticed a panicked man trying to revive his unconscious friend at the back of a pickup.  "He said his buddy wasn't breathing," explained McVey.  "I thought, well, let's see what's going on.  Sometimes you just have to act." More >>

I wanted to let you in on a little trick I do when I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with family stuff and day to day chores. More >>

.. I am gay... my partner and I have a business, and we necessarily hire young guys who are not real organized in their lives to work here... More >>

My mother, who shall we say loves to complain and make all problems revolve around her and focus on how they affect her, called me...Her dilemma - her ex-husband who is back together with her after leaving her for a 5 year shack up honey is back in her life. More >>

The Future of Parenting
Five Key Trends in the Future of Parenting
By Caron B. Goode
www.acpi.com

The future is uncertain. So is the future of parenting. The aftermath of disasters such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina has cast a shadow of doubt over our lives. This pervasive sense of insecurity and vulnerability has prompted many people to reevaluate and reclaim what is most important to them#151;their families. We instinctively reach out to our families for comfort. But is it possible to give that feeling roots? Is it possible for parents to give their children a sense of strength, security, and faith in the future?

According to Caron B. Goode, director of the Academy for Coaching Parents International, it is not only possible, it is imperative.

Five Key Trends in the Future of Parenting

• Family First. Although statistics indicate a 10% increase in the number of stay at home parents, the majority of children today are raised in families where both parents work. While economic pressures make this situation hard to escape, parents have begun to give voice to their desire to put family first. According to a 2004 study by the Families and Work Institute, parents are starting to say no to overtime and yes to family time. In fact, a recent survey found that among working fathers between the ages of 22-37, 52% have no interest in taking on more job responsibility, as compared to 68% in 1992.
  
  
• Fostering Resiliency. While parents may have never considered fostering resiliency in their children before, they do now. Resiliency is the ability to navigate stressors, major or minor, and then return to the business of living. Studies have shown that children who have close, supportive families and caregivers are more apt to deal with stress or trauma in a positive manner than those who do not. Having supportive, sensitive, and responsible parents helps ensure that children are equipped to handle life's stressors, now and in the future.
  
  
• Raising Compassionate Children. More and more, parents are concerning themselves with raising compassionate children. As borders blur and the global community expands, parents feel it is important for their children to be understanding, empathic, and willing to help a neighbor in need. To be compassionate, one must first be capable of identifying with another, which is best taught by example. Parents who treat their children with kindness and respect, will see those same children treating others in kind. By nature, children are caring and compassionate creatures, but it is up to parents to nurture their altruistic behavior.
  
  
• Finding Faith. Increasingly, parents are becoming interested in helping their children develop a spiritual base. A growing number of parents are turning to spirituality, whether it is religious, iconic or mystic in nature, to help them navigate rough terrain and master the uncertainty that inevitably visits every life. Teaching children to believe in something greater than oneself fosters a sense of community and reinforces the tenets of tolerance on many levels. The very nature of spirituality shows children that no one person is more important than another. It illustrates that we are, in fact, all part of a greater whole, and that this whole can be a powerful source of strength and a vital instrument for change.
  
  
• Reducing Stress. Today many adults and children suffer with chronic stress which has been linked to a number of physical conditions such as depression, heart disease, and diabetes. In addition to the adverse health consequences, overexposure to stress may, in part, inhibit the development of healthy resilience. Scientists believe that our ability to manage stress is formed in childhood through a combination of genes and experience. Everyone must learn to deal with stress, and to a degree stress is necessary to a healthy, productive life. This generation of families is aware of this fact, but they are also starting to say enough is enough. Mothers and fathers are beginning to recognize that they can't nor do they want to do it all. Parents are spending less time on the things they feel they must do, and making room for the things they want to do, like spend time with their family. They are starting to insist that their children assume responsibility within the family, which in turn is helping their children learn how to manage time, become part of a whole, and develop a strong sense of community. They are also starting to replace the propensity to over schedule their children and acknowledging that kids need time to be kids. This shift in attitude is leading to a less stressful existence, and is putting the emphasis back on the family functioning as a unit.

Dr. Caron Goode is a parenting expert and the director of the Academy of Parent Coaching International. The Academy offers a parent coaching certification program for individuals interested in helping families nurture and grow their children. For more information, visit www.acpi.biz Receive a free online parenting magazine, visit www.InspiredParenting.net. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.

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"PASS OR FAIL"
Strengthen Your Marriage with a Simple Daily Exercise
By Winn Claybaugh
www.beniceorelse.com

I don't know about you, but I've found that on many days it's easier to smile at strangers than at the person at home. However, if you want a better marriage, then you need to practice every day with total strangers. Imagine that in the course of one day you come across fifty people. They might include strangers you pass in a parking lot, a waitress, or a bank teller. What if you looked at all of those relationships as a "pass or fail" exercise?

You pass when you smile at a stranger in the parking lot and say, "Have a nice day," or go out of your way to cheer a grumpy waitress, or choose to ignore a driver who flips you off. You fail when you come across that stranger in the parking lot and do absolutely nothing, or when that waitress has a worse day after her experience with you.

Can you have fifty fails in a day and expect to go home to a successful, constructive, loving relationship with your spouse? Absolutely not. You can't be a monster in the world and expect to be charming at home.

Several years ago, I traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, with a dear friend of mine, Kitty Victor, for a two-day seminar we were facilitating together. After landing at the airport, we had about an hour to grab our bags, get to the hotel, change clothes, and begin the seminar. We jumped into a cab but didn't tell the driver we were in a hurry. However, our cabbie was driving like a maniac and his driving began to frighten us. He darted in and out of lanes, honking and yelling at the other drivers. A driver next to us was talking on his cell phone, so our driver sped up, cut in front of the other driver, and slammed on his brakes-all in rush-hour traffic.

At that point I yelled, "What are you doing?" Our driver mumbled something about how he hated it when other drivers talk on the phone. I angrily quipped, "Oh, so you're going to teach him a lesson at the expense of our safety? Quit driving like a maniac! Slow down, and get us to our hotel safely."

At that point, Kitty asked me, "Pass or fail?"

I replied, "PASS!" Improving your relationships doesn't mean letting people walk all over you while you bite your tongue. Unconditional love doesn't mean unconditional abuse. Had I said nothing to the cab driver, I wouldn't have been honoring the most important relationship I have: my relationship with myself. Physically or verbally attacking him-"You're an idiot and the worst driver in history!"-would also be a fail.

If you want a better relationship with your spouse, you need to practice all day, every day, with total strangers. Every stranger you encounter was sent to you for a specific reason and purpose: They're your personal home-play assignments. So, which will it be-pass or fail?

Winn Claybaugh is the author of Be Nice (Or Else!) and "one of the best motivational speakers in the country," according to CNN's Larry King. A business owner for over 25 years with over 8,000 people in his organization, Winn is the co-owner of hair care giant Paul Mitchell's school division. Winn has helped thousands of businesses build their brands and create successful working cultures. His clients include Southwest Airlines, the Irvine Company, Vidal Sassoon, Entertainment Tonight, Mattel, For Rent magazine, Structure/Limited/Express, and others. Winn is a frequent guest on national radio and a regular contributor to online publications. Visit www.beniceorelse.com to sign up for his free monthly Be Nice (Or Else!) newsletter. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.

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Toddler Treat: Cranberries
By Cheryl Tallman and Joan Ahlers

Toddlers love to play with their food. Dipping sauces make foods taste good and provide your child with an activity that makes meals and snacks more fun. Here are two recipes for yummy dipping sauces - one for fruits and another for veggies, tofu and meats.

Creamy Cranberry Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:
frac34; cup 100 percent cranberry raspberry (or grape) juice
frac12; cup sour cream
frac12; cup vanilla yogurt

Directions:
Place juice into a small saucepan. Boil until reduced to a syrup (about 3 tablespoons). Allow to cool. Add syrup to remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Chill and serve with a variety of fresh fruit slices.

Cranberry Mustard Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:
frac12;cup jellied cranberry sauce
1 frac12; tablespoons grainy Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Directions: Combine ingredients in a small mixing bowl, whisking until smooth. Serve hot or at room temperature. Serve with raw/blanched veggies, baked tofu, chicken fingers or fish sticks.

All about cranberries

The cranberry is a Native American fruit that grows on trailing vines like a strawberry, and thrives in wetland areas, called bogs. Cranberries are harvested in September and October. The most common technique for harvesting is known as a "wet" harvest, which involves flooding the bogs with water to float the fruit for easy collection. During the winter the frozen water insulates and protects the vines.

The North American cranberry has a distinguished history. Native Americans used cranberries as food, in ceremonies, and medicinally. Revolutionary War veteran Henry Hall planted the first commercial cranberry beds in Dennis, Massachusetts in 1816. Today they are farmed on approximately 40,000 acres across the northern United States and Canada.

Cranberries are available in a variety of product forms including: fresh, juice, dried and sauce. Cranberries are considered a healthy fruit. They contain no cholesterol and virtually no fat, and are low in sodium. In addition, they contain significant amounts of antioxidants and other phytonutrients that may help protect against heart disease, cancer, aging and other diseases. Cranberries also contain bacteria-blocking compounds that are helpful in preventing urinary tract infections, and possibly ulcers and gum disease.

Age to introduce: Over 12 months (cooked/juice/sauce). Over 18 months (dried).

Cranberries for the family
Cranberry up your Thanksgiving meal by trying some of these tasty and simple ideas.

1. Football snack: Add dried cranberries to any nut mixture.
   
   
2. Salad: Sprinkle dried cranberries on mixed green or spinach salad. The sweetness of the cranberries is terrific with any vinaigrette dressing and is a great compliment to crumbled blue cheese or goat cheese.
   
   
3. Side dish: Add dried cranberries to your favorite stuffing, wild rice, or couscous recipe.
   
   
4. Veggie: Sauteacute; onions, diced zucchini and dried cranberries in olive oil. Season with a dash of turmeric, cinnamon, and rep pepper flakes. Great taste and awesome color!
   
   
5. All American apple pie: Add frac12; cup of fresh cranberries to your favorite apple recipe.
   
   
6. Treat the whole family to fresh cranberry sauce. Here is a simple recipe that can be made ahead of time.

Easy Cranberry Sauce:

Ingredients
16 ounces fresh cranberries
2 cups granulated sugar
frac12; cup cranberry juice
frac12; cup fresh orange juice or water

Directions:
Combine ingredients in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the berries pop open (about 10 minutes). Skim the foam off the surface with a metal spoon and discard. Cool to room temperature.

Storage: Refrigerate, covered, for up to three months.

About the authors: Cheryl Tallman and Joan Ahlers are sisters, the mothers of five children, and founders of Fresh Baby (www.FreshBaby.com). Raised by parents who love fresh foods and entertaining, their mom, a gourmet cook, ensured that they were well-equipped with extraordinary skills in the kitchen. Both with long track records of business success, they decided to combine their skills in the kitchen with their knowledge of healthy foods and children to create Fresh Baby. Cheryl and Joan put a modern twist on the conventional wisdom that when you make it yourself, you know it's better. Their goal at Fresh Baby is to make the task of raising a healthy eater a little bit easier for all parents. Fresh Baby's breastfeeding accessories and baby food making supplies provide parents with practical knowledge and innovative tools to support them in introducing their children to great tasting, all-natural foods easily and conveniently. Visit them online at www.FreshBaby.com and subscribe to their Fresh Ideas newsletter to get monthly ideas, tips and activities for developing your family's healthy eating habits! Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com

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The Great Crib Escape
By Armin Brott
www.mrdad.com

Dear Mr. Dad: My year-old child has begun to climb out of the crib at night. How do I keep her safe?

A: Start by thinking about her environment in larger and larger circles, from the crib to the door. First, the crib. There get rid of all those bumpers (those oh-so-cute fabric pads that used to protect your baby from banging her head against the inside of the crib). Bumpers make great stepping stones for climbers. Also, take all those big stuffed animals, pillows, and heavy comforters out of the crib. These items were dangerous as suffocation hazards when your baby was small. Now that she's bigger, they're tickets to freedom.

Start by explaining to your child that this is her very own, safe, special bed, and that she can sleep there all night, just like Mommy and Daddy do in their bed. Then, if you haven't done it already, adjust the crib's mattress so it's at the setting closest to the floor. If the lower mattress and lack of climbing materials still don't prevent escape, you have a few options.

You might consider buying one of the commercially available safety nets that fit over the top of the crib like a large dome. These nets always seem a little like you're imprisoning your child, but they're a temporary solution (they're also excellent for keeping roaming pets out of the crib).

If safety nets aren't your style, consider installing a gate across her doorway or using a doorknob safety cover that your child won't be able to open. If you go this route, though, be absolutely sure that your child's room is completely childproofed.

As your child approaches two, she'll begin associating climbing and jumping with the possibility of falling, and may become more cautious on her own. You can help the process along by reminding her#151;'Remember how you fell down and bumped your head and cried?"

Whatever you do, don't just give up and put pillows around the crib, as some people do. Because pillows can shift around and expose the bare floor, this is not a good long-term solution.

The next step is a "big girl bed," which can be a mattress on the floor or a twin bed. The twin bed should be pushed against the wall, with a bed rail on the outside. This all applies until it is time for potty learning, when the world gets even bigger!

Armin Brott, hailed by Time as 'the superdad's superdad, has written or co-written six critically acclaimed books on fatherhood, including the newly released second edition of Fathering Your Toddler: A Dad's Guide to the Second and Third Years. His articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, American Baby, Parenting, Child, Men's Health, The Washington Post among others. Armin is an experienced radio and TV guest, and has appeared on Today, CBS Overnight, Fox News, and Politically Incorrect. He's the host of 'Positive Parenting, a weekly radio program in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit Armin at www.mrdad.com. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.

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Fears Of A Clown
by Bob Schwartz

There are certain words spoken by a child that can send a shiver of panic through every parental nerve ending. I've discovered that the words causing the greatest consternation were not "Don't worry, the tattoos can always be removed with a laser" or "Can you believe putting in six eyebrow rings barely hurt?"

Rather, the words which sent me quickly into a panic attack were, "My Gymbo's gone!"

Most children, sometime in their early bedtime careers, take a liking to sleeping with a stuffed animal, cuddly clown, small blanket or even something out of the ordinary like one of my children's predilection for nightly embracing a deck of Rugrats Uno cards. Don't ask.

Our son fell into the clown category, and while putting him to bed one night during a family vacation in Canada, we discovered the terrifying experience of finding that his Gymbo the clown was gone. Vanished. Without even a trace of stuffing left behind or a crayon scribbled note.

After ransacking the room and coming up Gymboless, it was clear that he was most likely the victim of an involuntary dollnapping. We concluded he must have been inadvertently scooped up with the sheets that day by the hotel staff. Poor little Gymbo was lying innocently on the bed one minute and then, suddenly, his world was torn asunder with the disengagement of a fitted sheet.

Apparently, he was abruptly wrapped up in the bed linen and tossed down that dark and seemingly never-ending chute to the basement laundry facility. He went from his sheltered suburban upbringing, to being quickly exposed to the giant underbelly of a hotel building. He was naively left to wonder what he'd done to be cast aside and jettisoned into the dungeon of the sheet and pillow case world he was then forced to call home.

The immediate focus was damage control by one parent and Gymbo retrieval by the other. As our son broke out into hysterics, he made it painfully clear that no Gymbo for him meant no sleep. For everyone. And after a long day of nonstop vacationing movement, no sleep was simply an untenable concept for me.

My wife quickly got connected to the hotel laundry room and explained the dire circumstances. She was advised that they'd not seen him yet, but amazingly, they requested she provide them a description of the victim.

This caused us to immediately wonder just how many stuffed dolls they had lying in that basement. Was there some international black market for stuffed cuddly things going on down there? I grabbed the phone and interjected that we'd be able to pick him out of a lineup, so please just let us know how many cotton clowns they'd seen recently. Or perhaps they'd like us to come down and do a composite watercolor painting for them.

I handed the phone back to my wife who patiently provided the laundry staff the unmistakable physical characteristics of a stuffed blue and yellow clown #151; a missing button on his body-hugging suspenders, frizzy red hair, a frayed right leg, about twelve inches long, a bow tie, and with an unwavering cat that ate the canary smile on his face. I felt very confident they wouldn't confuse him with a mattress pad.

As we anxiously paced back and forth, the phone finally rang. In a thick French Canadian accent, the unemotional voice said, "Vee have located your clown."

The words, spoken so solemnly yet somewhat muffled, forced me to become fearful they would next demand a ransom? Or, worse yet, advise us that after a violent fifty-minute foray in the tumble dryer his arm was hanging by a thread?

My wife and I were so thankful that Gymbo was soon delivered to our door in one piece and wearing that same cockeyed grin, but to me, he had a little shell-shocked look. I could only think of the horrors he must have seen down below, tossed in amongst the giant spinning washer along with stained tablecloths and thrown about in the whirling dryers with a bath towel pressed against his face.

We could only hope that the familiar rhythmic breathing of his sleeping owner in the footed pajamas would soon erase the memories of his emotionally charged excursion into the outside world.

We did learn to avoid any unchaperoned Gymbo excursions in the future by tying one end of a shoelace around his waist and the other end around the bedpost each morning. I know that doesn't necessarily look all that loving, but hey, he never stops smiling. And it does eliminate one potential for bedtime parental panic.

Once was enough #151; for all of us.

Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com

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